Favorite Tunes of 2023

Guess what? I continue to buy music…and barely listen to it! Throwing more money down the drain in 2023. Of course, I listened to *some* of it, but my bark is always bigger than my bite when it comes to consuming pop culture (of all types. obvi.). That said, I only bought albums during six months of the year (January 13, March 4, April 6, July 2, September 4, October 1). So, perhaps I was more controlled than it feels like now reviewing my iTunes. (Yes, I still use iTunes, and an iPod, and shut up, get off my lawn.)

Favorite Singles:

  • “Paper” Kenzie I don’t even know if this was a 2023 release but 2023 is when I got it. I think I heard it on a TV show. I will put this on repeat for my entire bus ride to school. Can’t stop. The ultimate “how TF is it that you don’t love me” song. Story of my damn life.
  • “Flowers” Miley Cyrus Doh, was this not the song of most of the year. Even Diane Keaton (!!) made a video of herself singing along to this.
  • “Be On Your Way” Daughter I never listened to the rest of the album as much as this one song.
  • “Ignore Me” Mothe When am I not feeling ignored? Was this song stolen from my brain?
  • “Ghost in the Machine” SZA featuring Phoebe Bridgers All you had to do to get me to listen to a song this year was put Phoebe Bridgers on it (and yeah I don’t even think this song is from 2023? maybe?). That said, I never figured out what the SZA hype was. I maybe didn’t give it enough of a chance.
  • “Runner” Tennis Total epic movie soundtrack feel. Is that where I heard this first? We’ll never know.
  • “And We’ll Leave It There” Olafur Arnolds & Ella McRibb I don’t remember from where or why I found out about this but I watched a whole video of how this song came together and it’s just gorgeous.
  • “A Good Love, Part 1” Bear’s Den if you got a mix from me this year, this was probably on it, heh. I think I kept trying to add it to every one and then realizing I had already used it, oop.
  • “Run Away to Mars” Talk Every time I played this song, I thought maybe I WILL run away to Mars. How much worse could it fucking possibly be?!? I listen to it on the bus and pretend I’m on a spaceship.
  • “Our Song” P!NK I liked her whole album really but never listened to it *that* much.
  • “Lift Me Up” Rihanna from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack. I think that means this song didn’t come out this year, but I listened to the fuck out of it. CHURCH.
  • “Just Like Heaven” Hannah Peel. Cover.
  • “Puzzle Peace” SAILR Aw. So pretty.
  • “If I Could” Charlotte Day Wilson If only
  • “Everywhere, Everything” Noah Kahan Someone (can’t remember) said to them when someone mentions Noah Kahan they just think “yeah, come to Nashville, meet every single long-haired boy.” Ha. I do know that his songs are all the same song to me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like them.

I made three mixes in 2023. I know I sent a bunch out early in the year. Email me if ya want a copy. 1: Ease on in. 2: Church. 3: Sing Me to Sleep.

Favorite Albums: Basically in the order they came out, with maybe a little slippage on that from The National.

  • Jacob Banks “Lies About the War” I’ve mentioned this before: the way Hanif Aburraquib writes about music convinces me that I will 100% completely adore every album he talks about. And it turns out, we just generally do not have the same taste in music and that’s almost always wrong. Heh. It’s to the point where I am no longer allowed to buy albums he hyped until I’ve listened to the samples at least 20 times and still want it. Yes, that’s how bad my Hanif persuasion goes. Regardless, I bought this in January based on his recommendation and I love it so so so very much. Deep and dark and tangly. What a voice!! Fave songs: “Just When I Thought”, “Our Song” (feat. Anna Leone.
  • Anna Tivel “Outsiders” Another January purchase that I never stopped listening to. You know, January, the month where I buy everything everyone else loved in 2023 that I missed. This one comes from Kiki’s husband Steve’s recommendation. My favorite song was “Heroes”.
  • boygenius “The Record” Anything that needs to be said has already been said by a bajillion people. I’m not all “I repost every picture boygenius ever posts on their instagram” levels of obsession, LIKE SOME PEOPLE I KNOW (not a joke), but there’s no denying how good this album is. At first, I was like obsessively figuring out who wrote which song and did that mean I liked one artist more (since I didn’t love any of their solo stuff as much as I loved this) but now I just think of it like the Beatles: better together. Favorite songs: “Not Strong Enough”, “Emily I’m Sorry”, “True Blue”, and “Cool About It”.
  • The National “First Two Pages of Frankenstein” AND The National “Laugh Track” I mean, what the AF, my favorite band in the world put out two massively fantastic albums in the same year. AND I got to see them in concert again (it was just such a fabulous night). Honestly, I love both albums in their entirety, but if you want just some snippets, here you go: Fave songs FTPF: “New Order T-Shirt”, “Eucalyptus” (that ending), “This Isn’t Helping” (w/ Phoebe Bridgers bien sur). “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend” (also w/ PB). Fave Songs LT: “Weird Goodbyes” (w/ Bon Iver), “Hornets”, “Laugh Track” (PB again), “Crumble” (w/ Rosanne Cash).
  • Olivia Rodrigo “Guts” For the twelve-teen in me, that never completely goes away. Silly, goofballs, OMG I’M SO IN LOVE and OMG I’M SO NOT music. Fun times. Favorite songs: the back to back play of “Logical” and “Get Him Back!”
  • Sufjan Stevens “Javelin” I’m sorry whut. Can words. No, they can’t. Fucking stunningly beautiful that’s all you need to know. STUNNING. Amazeballoons. Favorite songs: “Goodbye Evergreen” (THAT BEGINNING), “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?”, “My Red Little Fox” (kiss me like the wind), “Shit Talk.”

Albums I really liked when I listened, but just didn’t keep hanging with much beyond their purchase:

  • Natalie Merchant “Keep Your Courage” Dang, Natalie Merchant, I’ve been enjoying your tunes for over 30 years.
  • Tommy Prine “This Far South” Doing his dad proud.
  • Daughter “Stereo Mind Game” I did put one of their singles above. I liked this. It just dropped off my radar too fast.

Albums I’m enjoying on my 2023 review that I don’t even remember from actually during 2023:

  • Future Teens “Sensitive Sessions”
  • Wild Rivers “Sidelines”

Favorite Tunes of 2020

Finally! The post you’ve all been waiting for. Obvi.

My Favorite Albums:

  • Perfume Genius “Set My Heart on Fire Immediately” (May) Oh my, this album. Falsetto swoony dramatics can be hit or miss for me, but I absolutely loved this. Favorite songs: “Jason,” “Nothing at All,” and “Some Dream.”
  • William Prince “Reliever” (February) This deep voice of calmness was so soothing. I guess this is labeled as country. If you like Eddie Vedder’s solo stuff, you might like this. Favorite songs: “Always Have What We Had” (with the best line “I can miss you from anywhere” SWOON) and “That’s All I’ll Ever Become.”
  • Ethan Gruska “En Garde” (February) don’t know what made me pick this one up (maybe the collab with Phoebe Bridgers?), but it stuck in my head. It’s certainly got a bit of an Elliott Smith vibe which turns out to be the kind of sound I was seeking all year long. Perfect for a melancholy “OMG it’s the end of the world” year like 2020, am I right? Favorite songs: “On the Outside,” “Enough for Now” (w/ PB), “Teenage Drug” one of my favorite songs of the year for sure.
  • Phoebe Bridgers “Punisher” (July) Speaking of Elliott Smith vibes… I wrote ‘Yup, yup, yup” next to pretty much every song on this album. I know this was Taylor Swift’s year to many people (and I do like both those albums enough to have them on my top 10) but I will maintain that this album and the HAIM release (below) are JUST AS GOOD, if not… better? Heh. Don’t come at me, Swiftees, I’m allowed to have a different opinion than you! Favorite songs: “Moon Song”, “Graceland Too”, “Kyoto”… And all the rest of them. Ha.
  • HAIM “Women In Music Pt III” (July) Do I own or know anything about parts 1 and 2, if those indeed exist? Nope, I don’t, but this album just really dug its way in to my eardrums. There’s all kinds of musical nods happening in the backgrounds, it’s so upbeat and fun in a LOT of ways. There are several songs with just a great! beat! on this album. What fun. Favorite songs: “Los Angeles,” “The Steps”, “I Know Alone”, “Up from a Dream” “Don’t Wanna”, “All That Ever Mattered”, “Now I’m In It.”
  • The Weeknd “After Hours” (April) Cringe. Some of his lyrics are so misogynistic, I don’t think I’d love my teenage daughter getting obsessed with his music. Those are probably all the songs I like the best HAHAHAHA OMG life is frustrating. I just… always love every album he puts out and then one day I find myself analyzing the lyrics I’m singing along to and get annoyed. Oh well. Such is life. Sometimes great songs have shitty messages. Music is complicated like that. Favorite songs: “Hardest to Love”, “Heartless”, “In Your Eyes”.
  • Kesha “High Road” (February) I had never bought a Kesha / Ke$ha album before but this one was totally worth it. TOTALLY. A wild mix of upbeat rock and pop, melancholy country, it’s up, it’s down, it’s all over the place. Favorite songs: “Cowboy Blues” (“Did I fuck my whole life up?”), “High Road,” “Birthday Suit” (so ridic), and “Resentment” (w/ Brian Wilson and Sturgill Simpson, of all people).
  • Waxahatchee “Saint Cloud” (April) Pretty sure Busy Phillips’ instagram stories put this on my radar as I’ve never really been a Waxahatchee fan in the past. This album has what is definitely a contender for song of the year: “Fire”. I take it for granted / If I could love you unconditionally / I could iron out the edges of the darkest sky / For some of us it ain’t enough / It ain’t enough. Cannot stop listening to it, singing it, humming it, getting lost in its chorus. It’s 2020’s Maggie Roger’s “Alaska.” Other favorites: “Lilacs” (so Dylanesque) and “Hell.”
  • Taylor Swift “Folklore” (July) OK are the “Cardigan” commercials not cracking everyone else up at this point? I mean, it seems insane months (and another album) later to suddenly see them a million times every Hulu show I watch. Heh. Favorite songs: “Exile” (feat Bon Iver) duh, “Seven,” “This Is Me Trying,” “Invisible String”, and “Mad Woman.”
  • Taylor Swift “Evermore” (December) Seriously, if this album was just the song “Ivy” in every single position, I would love it just as much. SONG OF THE YEAR, people, song of the whole damn year. Oh, goddamn, my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand. But, sure, there are others I liked. I guess. Favorite songs: “Willow,” “Champagne Problems,” “No Body, No Crime” (feat HAIM), “Dorothea,” and “Coney Island (feat The National).

Honorable Mentions:

  • Little Big Town “Nightfall” (February) In keeping the favorite list to 10, Waxahatchee knocked this one off. But there are a ton of songs on this album that really *really* stuck with me. Favorite songs: “Questions” and “The Daughters” might be the best back to back on an album all year.
  • BLACKSTARKIDS “Whatever, Man” (November) Oh wow, I dig this one. But.. I got it in November and then didn’t really start listening to it until 2021. Heh. I am always up for trying albums recommended by Hanif Abdurraqibb because his writing about music just sucks me in! But a lot of times it turns out I don’t hear what he heard in it. This one, however, is aces. Favorite song: “Camp Whatever” Haven’t felt alive in a while, but I’m not dead.

Best 1-2 Punch of the Year:

“WAP” Cardi B. & Megan Thee Stallion to be followed immediately by “Watermelon Sugar” Harry Styles. I know, what are we-teenagers? Just take my word for it.

Favorite Songs Not From Aforementioned Albums:

  • “Conversations in the Dark” John Legend – just all kinds of big swoony love for this tribute to CT.
  • “No Time for Love Like Now” Michael Stipe – definitely my favorite song of those early Pandemic days. Ah, those early Pandemic days.
  • “Hard to Forget” Sam Hunt – yes, I love his cheesy sappy fratboy albums. But never all the way through. This song though…
  • “Another Beginning” Joshua Radin – can he even write a bad song?
  • “Kings & Queens” Ava Max – just put this baby on repeat.
  • “One More Second” and “Take Me Out of Town” Matt Berninger – I was bummed to not really enjoy this album overall but loved these two.
  • “Ridiin’ Solo” Jason DeRulo – I think this may have come out some other year but 2020 is the year I could not stop singing it, like, basically, ever. It’s all about the beat, baby.
  • “Wasted Youth” Diana Gordon – oooooo love this draggy slow swirl.
  • “Almost Home” Moby (feat Damien Jurado – OMG so Bon Iver.
  • “I’m the One” DJ Khaled (feat. Justin Bieber et al) – Good grief, I like a song with Justin Beiber on it? Just bury me in shame.
  • “Spiral” Pinegrove – Another Busy Phillips insta earworm. “Drink water, good morning…”
  • “Video Games” and “Goodbye to All That” Sufjan Stevens – another album I found myself disappointedly uninterested in. Sigh. I love so much of Sufjan’s stuff, but somehow I never found a way in with this one.
  • “Cavalry” Mashrou’ Leila – an album recommended by YA author Abdi Nazemian, thoroughly enjoyed it and this song was the real standout for me.
  • “Beige” and “Goodpain” Yoke Lore – their Goodpain EP was a highlight.
  • “Gone Gone/Thank You” Tyler, the Creator – probably came out in 2019 but I bought the album in January, one of my “everyone had this on last year’s list” purchases, I think.
  • “Pictures” Asgeir – I buy a lot of singles when I hear them in a movie, on a TV show, or on a commercial. Presumably that’s how I found this one.
  • “Lost Here” Fauntella Crow – probably same.

Favorite Covers: (in that rare year where I bought very few!):

  • “Explain It to Me” Squirrel Flower – Liz Phair cover, that frankly sounds very close to the original. Heh.
  • “I’m on Fire” Staves – all slowed down and glorious.
  • “Put Your Records On” Ritt Momney – omg the name of this band. Smacks forehead.

What’d I miss? What song or album could YOU not stop listening to in 2020? I’d love to know…

Favorite Tunes of a Decade, 2009-2019

(As recollected in 2019, by a shaky 51-year-old, who stopped consistently updating her blog…a decade ago! HA!) It turns out my last annual post of favorite tunes was in…2008. It’s almost like I planned this. HA!

2009: (I posted monthly reviews of all the tunes I bought in 2009…finishing those posts in 2010 ha.)

Favorite albums: Looking over the albums I purchased in 2009, what stands out to me are Empty Orchestra “Here Lies Empty Orchestra” and the Avett Brothers “I and Love and You”. Also loved Pete Yorn “Back and Fourth” but less so in retrospect (I still listen to the other two). I was a big fan of Matt Hires “Take Us to the Start”, his voice is so unique, try “Honey, Let Me Sing You a Song” and “Perfect Day” and see what you think. I loved Great Lake Swimmers “Lost Channels” and Shwayze “Let It Beat” (I know, his songs are ridiculous but I love (LOVE) both the Shwayze albums I own). I listened to MGMT “Oracular Spectacular” all the time.

Favorite songs not on those albums: Frightened Rabbit “Swim Until You Can’t See Land”; I still constantly listen to two Greg Laswell songs from the EP he released that year (or that I bought that year, whichever) “This Woman’s Work” and “Ghost”. This was the winter I listened to “Jai-Ho!” incessantly (from the Slum-Dog Millionaire soundtrack).

2010:
Favorite albums: Band of Horses “Infinite Arms” had so many good songs on it, I just cannot turn off “Compliments” if it comes up on shuffle; I loved the soundtracks to Whip It! and Crazy Heart (both awesome movies!); and the self-titled Head and the Heart album was on heavy rotation.

Favorite songs not on those albums: I kept listening to an older song “Hurricane Glass” by Catherine Feeny; the clappy clap “I Hope This Gets to You” by the Daylights; I loved loved loved a LOT of the covers they did on Glee, particularly “One Of Us”, and “What It Feels Like for a Girl” (sung by the boys); “This Charming Life” by Joan Armatrading from the Sons of Anarchy soundtrack (I liked a lot of songs they featured on the show!); “Love the Way You Lie” Rihanna and Eminem, omg, swoontastic, love this song, love this video, have listened to it and/or watched it 9 bajillion times at least; “Airplanes” by B.o.B and Haley Williams; and it seems like I listened to a LOT of singles that year, so… I’ll leave it at that.

2011:
Favorite albums: Bon Iver! (self-titled) The first one, I think. Oh, wow. I was still really listening to a lot of French rap back then and I loved Disiz La Peste “Les Histoires Extraordinaire d’un Jeune de Banlieu” (technically a 2005 release but 2011 is when I got it); I loved Wiz Khalifa’s album “Rolling Papers (ridiculous) and Matt Kearny “Young Love” from which basically every song should be a single (“Sooner or Later” and “Down” are both 100% irresistible). My favorite band from junior high randomly released an album this year: The Cars “Move Like This” !!! How…cray.

Favorite songs not on those albums: “Pumped Up Kicks” Foster the People (!!! love this song still); “We Found Love” Rihanna and Calvin Harris; “I’m His Girl” Friends and “Hey Boy” Magic Kids are a fun combo ; the 2007 song “Weighty Ghost” by Wintersleep was in heavy, heavy rotation, also “Marcy’s Song” the 1964 original and then the cover by John Hawkes for that icky movie I can’t remember the name of.

2012:
Favorite albums: Oh yes, Chiddy-Bang “Breakfast” a great album!! I also was super into Kishi Bashi “151A”; Of Monsters and Men “My Head Is an Animal”; and Great Lake Swimmers “New Wild Everywhere”.

Favorite songs not on those albums: “For Your Glory” Hayden Panettiere from the Nashville soundtrack, from the episode where she sings in a church; “Same Love” (feat Mary Lambert) from Macklemore and Ryan Lewis was huge that year but I also loved “Thrift Shop”; I was really into Tyler Ramsey‘s 2010 song “A Long Dream”; a teenybopper single “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction, ha; “Steal Back” from Aunt Martha, a lovely jangly tune; and a country ballad “I’ve Got a Name” Jim Croce.

2013:
Favorite albums: When I look at the many albums I bought in 2013, there really isn’t one jumping out at me as OH I STILL LISTEN TO THIS ALL THE TIME the way there are in some years. I did like the self-titled Beyonce album; San Fermin put out a good (self-titled) album, featuring at the time I believe the voices of Lucius who then also put out their own album “Wildewoman”; I know I spent a lot of time listening to The Head and the Heart “Let’s Be Still” and Kasey Musgraves “Same Trailer Different Park” (aw man, “Follow Your Arrow” is just irresistible!!).

Favorite songs not on those albums: Phosphorescent “Song for Zula” was the soundtrack of 2013 for me; I also loved Ben Harper “Amen Omen” (forever and ever, not a song from 2013 but that’s when I was listening to it); “Wake Me Up” Avicci, which played at every single workout class Hannah Anderson and I went to that summer; this was also the summer of “Blurred Lines” (Robin Thicke yuck, NOT a fave, but definitely something that got stuck in your head b/c it was playing everystupidwhere), “Get Lucky” (Daft Punk) and “Lose Yourself to Dance” (also Daft Punk); “I’m a Girl” Hayden Panettiere from the Nashville soundtrack; “Never Let Me Go” an 2011 song from Florence and the Machine.

2014:
Favorite albums: My favorite 2014 album was the swoontastic Lo Fang “Blue Film”. Oh man, that album. Turn off the lights, turn up the volume, thank me later. I also loved Sturgill Simpson‘s (debut, I think?) “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music”; Sylvan Esso‘s self-titled debut; Taylor Swift “1989”, whatever you think of her, that is a solid collection of songs; and Bastille “Bad Blood” a moody beyatch of an album that’s just gorgeous. Similarly beautiful and moody was “Mirror” from Robots Don’t Sleep and those are about as close to techno as I’ll ever get! There was also something just smile-inducing about revisiting all the golden oldies on the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack, although it will never stop pissing me off that the album isn’t in the order they were played in the movie (I obviously had to rearrange them on my own playlist).

Favorite songs not on those albums: A good ole jingly jangle “The Heart” by NEEDTOBREATHE (why is that the… never mind); all the songs Keira Knightley has on the Begin Again soundtrack, particularly “Like a Fool”; Sam Hunt “Break Up in a Small Town” ouch, so so so so much truth in these lyrics; and “It Ain’t Yours to Throw Away” Sam Palladio from the Nashville soundtrack. (I really love(d) a lot of the music from that show.)

2015:
Favorite albums: Oh man this was the year of Troye Sivan “Blue Neighborhood” which I listened to nonstop for months on end, I also went to see him live (by myself, near my birthday) and was the oldest person in the audience by probably 30 years. This was also the year the Hamilton Soundtrack entered my life, my other favorite album, and soon after the life of everyone who knows me as I passed it on to friend after friend after friend after friend… (I’m still passing Hamilton on to everyone I know; last year one of my classes read a biography of Hamilton while I simultaneously introduced them to the soundtrack and, of course, singing along!). I also loved Bon Iver “For Emma, Forever Ago” and Kate Tempest “Everybody Down” and Ryan Adams full-album cover of Tyler Swift’s “1989” made me pretty happy.

Favorite songs not on those albums: Low “What Part of Me” remains one of my all-time favorite songs, I could put in on repeat and listen to nothing else for days; Aloe Blacc “The Man” so damn catchy; Rixton “Me and My Broken Heart”; a Furious 7 feature “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa (I can play this song on ukulele, I love it that much); “Beautiful Day” by Joshua Radio and Sheryl Crow.

2016:
Favorite albums: Obviously my favorite album of 2016 was Beyonce “Lemonade”, nothing else really held a candle to Queen Bey. I still haven’t stopped listening to A Tribe Called Quest “We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service”, which is also truly a masterpiece, maybe a little less fun but such a huge political statement. It’s also an album you have to be very careful about accidentally singing along with, isn’t it!?!?! (“We the People” is SO catchy and so…not a song you want to absentmindedly singing along to.) This is a much quieter selection but I also loved Passenger “Young as the Morning, Old as the Sea”.

Favorite songs not on those albums: Looking at my iTunes playlist, I feel like I listened to more singles in 2016 than albums. My very favorite single was “Starboy” from The Weeknd (swoontastic). Some other faves were “Me, Myself and I” by G-Eazy and Bebe Rexha; “Si Tu No Estas” by Nicky Jam (this seems to be the year my students started getting me into reggaeton, specifically, and Spanish language tunes, more generally); I listened to Maggie Rogers “Alaska” nonstop (which reappears in 2019 when her full album finally came out!); Margaret Glaspy “You and I”; Lizzo “Good as Hell” (another artist that would blow up 2019); “Sugar (feat Francesco Yates)” by Robin Shultz (that driving beat, yo); “One Call Away” Charlie Puth (yup, I’m still susceptible to totally cheesy teenybopper songs); the Ashanti/Ja Rule cover of “Helpless” from The Hamilton Mixtape; and some goofy students totally had me playing “Price Tag” by Jessie J, which was released in 2011.

2017:
Favorite albums: My very top album of 2017 was Kendrick Lamar “Damn” without a doubt. I had bought the Butterfly album previously but “Damn” was when I really fell under Lamar’s spell. Other faves were The National “Sleep Well Beast”; and I really liked Rostam “Half Light” even though it’s not something I would likely say was “my style” so to speak.

Favorite songs not on those albums: “Good Life” by G-Eazy and Kahlini (from the Fates of the Furious soundtrack, doh!); Shawn Mendes “Mercy” (the acoustic version); “Si Tu La Ves” by Nicky Jam; “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran; “Body Like a Back Road” Sam Hunt; and the ubiquitous “I Can’t Keep Quiet” from The Faithful Choir (made famous by the Women’s March).

2018:
Favorite albums: My very favorite album was the boygenius EP, which I liked better than any of those artists’ solo albums; I also liked Kylie Minogue “Golden” and Meg Myers “Take Me to the Disco”; the sappy, sweet and yet irresistible Matt Nathanson “Sings His Sad Heart”; and Rosalia “El Mal Querer”, which I didn’t even get until December, go watch the videos, they’re just wowza.

Favorite songs not on those albums: “Black Beatles” by The Mayries, a song from 2017 that I listened to in 2019!; Kasey Musgraves “Slow Burn” (there are others I like on that album, but I wasn’t as wowed by the overall project as most people).

If that’s not enough for you, in 2018, I actually posted a month-by-month review of the music I bought, something I probably hadn’t done…in a decade!

2019:
Favorite albums: Maggie Rogers “Heard It in a Past Life” was my favorite album this year, without question. Runners up were J.S. Ondara “Tales of America”, G-Flip “About Us”, and Lizzo “Cuz I Love You”.

Favorite songs not from those albums: “Fingers” by Zayn (something about the very first moments in that song really, really reminds me of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love”); “Happier” by Bastille & Marshmello; “Here Right Now” by Joshua Radin, has that man ever made a song I don’t love?; and “Crowded Table” by The Highwomen.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

Watching: I just finished a rewatch/watch of One Tree Hill (I had only seen some of the first few seasons) and now I’m rewatching Firefly, which as you may know will hardly take any time at all. 🙁 I can’t figure out what I’ll watch next!

Reading: I’m about a third of the way through “Theft” by Peter Carey, which is definitely fun so far. I read quite a bit of Peter Carey back (BACK) in the day.

Listening to: Completely bingeing on Maggie Rogers “Heard It in a Past Life”, but also really obsessed with J.S. Ondara‘s “Tales of America.” It’s so good!

Writing: Sexy daydream poems on the bus, in the duplex form created by Jericho Brown (whose poems I’m obsessed with!).

Eating: Suddenly finding myself in sammy mode, I’ve been making nice big fat ones with ham, turkey, provolone, pickle slabs, roasted red peppers, giardinera, tomato, spinach and a little mayo. Oh yum they’re so good.

Drinking: So much lemonade I think it might be giving me acid reflux. Ha!

Knitting: Ah, nope. 🙁

Quilting: Also nope.

Sewing: Just made another tunic! And two more cut out. Let’s keep that momentum going…

Focusing on: Not spending any unnecessary money. Not bringing work home. Not staying at work beyond the hours I get paid for.

What’s up with you? 🙂

Music I Bought in 2018…

So my $$$ spent on music has greatly decreased both due to lack of time (either to listen OR to even have heard about new tunes) AND lack of $$. But here is a quick review of the albums I bought in 2018 and whether they were worth it or not!

January: no tunes purchased.

February: no tunes purchased.

March:

  • Black Panther (soundtrack) – I adore Kendrick Lamar. His last two albums (ESPECIALLY “Damn”) have just rocked my socks off. But I bought this, forgot to listen, started, forgot, started, forgot. I’m not sure I ever even listened to this all-the-way through. March tends to be a NUTS month at school though so I probably just kept not finding any time to listen. Bygones.

April:

  • Tinashe “Joyride” – OK. didn’t love it.
  • Kylie Minogue “Golden” – LOVE love love love. One of my favorites of the year.
  • Cardi B “Invasion of Privacy” – It’s OK. Most of the songs sound exactly the same to me! /ducks/

May: No tunes purchased.

June: No tunes purchased.

July:

  • Maluma “FAME” – Yes, I started buying Spanish-language rap and R&B a few years ago due to my primarily Hispanic students and some of their recommendations. No, I don’t speak it even close to well enough–I either look up translations of the lyrics OR I just enjoy it for the sounds and don’t worry about its most likely inappropriate lyrics (it is AMAZING what students will recommend to you sometimes without considering their audience). This is, to my very-inexperienced-with-it ears, definitely in the “reggaeton” tradition, like Nikki Jam, another student-inspired purchase of mine.
  • Meg Myers “Take Me to the Disco” – Love love love love. Definitely one of my favorite purchases of the year.

August: No tunes purchased.

September:

  • Troye Sivan “Bloom” – It’s OK. But I had too much built-up anticipation because I looooove his first album so much. This falls short for me.
  • ARM & TEPR “Psaumes” – this is an older release that I just got turned on to. I have in the past bought a lot of French rap/R&B but I’ve fallen off recently. It’s OK–I think a certain song or two convinced me to buy it but then I didn’t love the album as a whole.
  • Also bought two singles from Odessa “I will be there” (love) and “Hummed low” (OK), and “Black Beatles” from Mayrie, which I like.

October:

  • Cat Power “Wanderer” – I like it. It’s very mellow. The Rihanna cover is what grabbed me. But I’ve been more into previous albums of hers.
  • Matt Nathanson “Sings His Sad Heart” – SO good! Best album of his, in my view. He’s awesome in concert, has such SUCH good stage banter, and his albums before this have never lived up to his live performances for me–they’ve always been a little cheesy. A little white frat boy “college-ing it out” (a term I use a lot and frankly think it’s self explanatory so maybe you understand it and maybe you don’t). Anyway, I love this album.

November: No tunes purchased.

December: I spend the most $$ on tunes in December every year, where I start rabidly buying things I see on best of lists!

  • Boygenius EP – It’s SO good, I can’t stop listening to it.
  • Kacey Musgraves “Golden Hour” – I like it but it’s a little light. There’s one song I just can’t stand to listen to. There’s two I love. But I don’t really think it earned the hype for me.
  • Janelle Monae “Dirty Computer” – this is basically a Prince album to me. So I like it. But it doesn’t necessarily make me feel like seeking out all her stuff.
  • Mitski “Be the Cowboy” – definitely like a few songs from it. Haven’t listened to it enough yet though. My bad.
  • Rosalia “El Mal Querer” – I love this. So operatic and drama mama. Her videos are all Queen of Wands sass, vim and vigor. LOVE. Even though I don’t understand the lyrics. 😉
  • NoName “Room 25” – bought based on best of lists. Hasn’t really pulled me in. But need to give it a few more tries.
  • Lucy Dacus “Historian” – it’s good but I like the Boygenius (which she’s part of) a LOT more.
  • and I bought a single of Brandi Carlile’s song “Mother” which is stunning. She’s an artist I really only buy singles by though, her full albums never grab me.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

…posting to my blog for the first time in over a year, WHUT. There’s a few technical things I’ve been vaguely waiting to fix behind the scenes, and then there’s LIFE and all that, and… yeah. HI. ‘Sup?

Watching: OK, I was rewatching all of the original Charmed, but I got to around when SOMEONE becomes a SOMETHING (no spoilers)…and I just sorta stopped. I did miss those goofy witches. I watched the first couple episodes of the new Charmed (which is really what sent me back) but it really annoys me that they got such a cool cast of girls and then put this doofy white dude in charge of them a la Giles from Buffy and so yeah I haven’t watched it after the first three. In current TV, I still adore Blackish and Chicago Fire. New TV wise, I am liking A Million Little Lies, even though it 100% has party-of-five syndrome (too many issues in one small group of people), and New Amsterdam, which makes me break down almost every week. But it’s good. Best hospital show in absolutely years. I started watching The Patriot (TV show not the dumb old movie) on Amazon–but I can only watch it when I stay late at work on that laptop b/c neither my personal laptop nor my home desktop are updated enough to currently watch shows on Prime, yes I’m pathetic, and now that I’ve made a personal vow to leave with the kids every night, well, I haven’t been able to watch anymore of it. But it’s SUPER cool and SO quirky. Oh, but the best, best, BEST thing I’ve seen in absolute years is Killing Eve, which I completely inhaled a weekend or so ago and cannot stop thinking about ever since. So good! So so so sadly I have not been to a movie in at least a few months… I’m having a hard time even remembering what I saw last! OMG THAT’s SO HORRIFYING. 🙁 I’ll come back and talk movies in another post if it comes to me.

Reading: I’ve instituted a new system where I read a YA or middle grades book in the morning, on the way to work, and an adult book on the way home. It’s been working great until I get stuck in a book I don’t want to read and then the system sorta breaks down and I listen to tunes instead, HA. Anyway, since I haven’t posted here all year, I haven’t made a book list (I KNOW, DID YOU JUST DIE OF SHOCK!), but I do have goodreads COMPLETELY updated (it’s got an app, it’s easier…) so you can check there. Some recent reads I would recommend are: 

Adult:

  • Friday Black, by Nan Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, a short story collection, the first and last stories of which are just mindblowingly good.
  • Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik, a slow (slow) burn but it really pays off in the end, a modern fantasy fairytale.
  • Graphic novel series Saga by Brian K. Vaughn (I’m caught up to Volume 9) and Monstress by Marjori M. Liu (there are three volumes out, GO START!), I love them both so much.
  • Muse of Nightmares, by Laini Taylor, the sequel to Strange the Dreamer, both of which are amazeballoons.

YA/Middle Grades: 

  • Kendare Blake‘s sister queen series “Three Dark Crowns“, ALL of those books were fabulous.
  • Endling: The Last, by Katherine Applegate, the beginning of a new high fantasy series by the author of Ivan!!
  • The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill, a good kid book alternative to Spinning Silver mentioned above.
  • And anything by Jason Reynolds or Kwame Alexander, two of the hottest young authors out there. And by hot I mean happening and in the news, as I have now had to clarify to numerous groups of silly students!

Listening to: I have bought sadly so very little music this year. It’s actually really stressing me out. The three albums I have listened to the most this year are Kylie Minogue “Golden”, Meg Myers “Take Me to the Disco”, and Matt Nathanson “Sings His Sad Heart” (wow, what a step up in quality!!), and I’ve been dipping into Cat Power “Wanderer” in the past few weeks. I do have a list of four albums I think I want from various top-10 lists out there (the latest from Kasey Musgraves, Janelle Monae, Mitski and Lucy Dacus) and I want the boygenius EP (the boygenius that Lucy Dacus is a part of, not any of the various boygenius things that come up when I search iTunes) but not sure it’s out yet? I also want to check out No Name, a female rapper.

Eating: Cooking all my breakfasts and lunches every week, as I generally do during the school year, and particularly obsessed with Chrissy Teigens’ Cravings 2: Hungry for More book. Everything I make out of it has been delicious.

Drinking: Coke, coke and more Coke. Oh, Coke, why can’t I quit you?

Knitting, quilting, sewing: I’ve done a TON of sewing throughout 2018 (9 dresses maybe? tunic/dress types) and I’ve still got quite a bit of fabric and new patterns to try. I made two new ones from the Lou Box Dress pattern just last month–a knit dress version that is perfection (OK, maybe a little wide in the neck but perfection, srsly), and a woven tunic version that is basically a wearable muslin. I haven’t got the fit right in the woven for a dress yet. I’m knitting a brioche scarf, and I have a sweater I have sort of gotten back to that I believe I started in January (oops). I want to make that my Christmas break project… we’ll see. 🙂 No quilting has happened recently though. 

Focusing on: Separating home life and work life. Trying to leave with the kids or as close to it as possible. Not bringing any grading or work home AT ALL. I get it done at school, or I don’t get it done. I’m not going to get into an argument with people about the insanely overworked, underpaid status of teachers these days but let’s just say I’m done letting myself be a victim of a sick system that gets millions of hours of free work from its primarily female workforce. It’s sexist bullshit frankly and were the majority of teachers men there would have been a government-sanctioned revolt a million years ago. But then again, would we even still have public education these days, if it wasn’t primarily women doing all the work???? 

So, that’s me. How about you? Leave me a note and let me know what you’re reading!